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The Grateful Soldier
By Doug Patton
July 2, 2001

God and soldier, we adore,
in time of danger, not before.
The danger passed and all things righted,
God is forgotten and the soldier slighted.
- Rudyard Kipling

Two and a quarter centuries ago, the educated, the wealthy and the privileged of the American Colonies were risking their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to gather together in Philadelphia, that they might create something heretofore unseen on this earth.

What they created was not, in practice, a perfect union, for there were those whose rights would not be recognized fully in law for generations to come. But it was, indeed, a "more perfect" union, and it was established on the unshakable premise that we are endowed with rights granted not by our government but by our Creator. The function of this new government was simply to recognize, acknowledge and protect those God-given rights. No more, no less.

Through all of America's great wars, we have had an indispensable resource -- the grateful soldier. The grateful soldier knows that the rights God has granted him can be taken away. He doesn't desire war. Indeed, he fears and detests the idea of battle; but in the end he knows that the alternative is unacceptable.

At 19, my father became a grateful soldier in the last war America was actually allowed to win. Like virtually every young American male of "The Greatest Generation," he was a part of the effort that stopped Fascism dead in its tracks before it could dominate the world. At 22, stationed in England, he was assigned to the unit that planned the greatest military assault the world has ever seen: D-Day, June 6, 1944. As an enlisted man, he suffered a non-combat injury that kept him out of the actual invasion. The man who replaced him was one of the first to fall at Omaha Beach. My father was fortunate. He returned home to the blessings of the liberty he had defended. He and my mother raised four children and lived together until natural death parted them after 53 years of marriage.

Many more were not so fortunate. Beneath the soil of Europe lie the remains of hundreds of thousands of grateful soldiers. They were our grandfathers and fathers and uncles and brothers. They were the sons of farmers and bankers, rich men and poor. They were the fathers of young children who would never know them. They, like their grateful brethren of wars past, made the greatest sacrifice a man can make. Sometimes we remember them. Usually, we take their sacrifices for granted.

We owe the grateful soldier more than we can ever repay. But much more than that, we owe the greatest reverence to God, to whom the grateful soldier paid homage with his blood in the name of liberty. The goodness of God is the only power on earth that could give a nation the courage to set an enemy free after a great and terrible war. Unlike virtually every other nation that has ever existed, America stands alone in granting liberty to its vanquished. Germany and Japan today are great and mighty economic powers, and their people are better off than at any time in their history, thanks to the generosity of America.

The grateful soldier has fought and died in all of America's wars. He carried a musket at Concord. He commanded a regiment at Gettysburg. He flew a biplane over France in 1917. He lies in a watery grave at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and he assaulted beaches at Normandy. He fought and bled and lost limbs and died in the freezing cold of Korea, the rice patties of Vietnam and the desert of Kuwait.

This week, as we take time to travel and barbeque and watch fireworks displays, we would do well to consider Kipling's lament and to contemplate the blessings of God and the sacrifices of America's grateful soldiers.

Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a speechwriter and policy advisor to federal, state and local candidates and elected officials. His work can be viewed weekly on GOPUSA.

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